


This isn't West Side Story

by sevenofspade



Series: Latium [2]
Category: Ancient History RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 04:36:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4377413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenofspade/pseuds/sevenofspade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scipio and Hannibal, through the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This isn't West Side Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alasse_Irena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alasse_Irena/gifts).



> This is a prequel to [Senatus consultum ultimum](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4357760) but spoils a major plot point for it. Please read that one first.
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading this!
> 
> (Seriously, though. Read the other one first.)

The sign over the shop read "Barca and sons, electricians". This was going to prove to be either the best or worse idea Scipio had ever had.

"Hi," Scipio said as he entered the shop. It wasn't exactly the smoothest thing he'd ever said -- a low bar though that may be -- but it was hard to be smooth when talking to who he suspected ruled the Carthaginian mob.

The man behind the counter startled and dropped an antique paper edition of Sun Tzu's Art of War in his lap. "Hi."

He was handsome and Scipio kicked himself for the remark. That wasn't why he was here.

"You're Barca?" Scipio started opening his messenger bag.

"No, I'm 'and sons'." 

"Plural?" Scipio got his Augury out of the bag and put it down on the desk.

"You know, you're the first to catch on to that. I'm Hannibal. Singular." The man smiled. He held out his hand.

Scipio took it. "Scipio. Single." Hannibal raised an eyebrow and Scipio's word caught up to him. "I mean singular!"

"So you're not single, then?" Hannibal picked up the Augury and popped open the back. A noxious cloud of black smoke made him cough. "What did you do to this thing?"

"Loaned it to Gaius," Scipio said. Partly true, at any rate.

"Don't loan him anything else."

"I'm certainly not going to be able to loan this to him again if you don't fix it." Scipio closed his bag. "And I'm single."

"Not interested, then?" It was a question that wasn't as idle as it sounded. Clearly Hannibal was interested.

Scipio took a deep breath. Nothing he could say would make this better or worse, so why not say the truth? "I barely know you, but, yes, potentially interested. When can I pick up the Augury?"

"It's a new model -- is it even out of beta testing yet? -- so I'm not sure." Hannibal scratched the back of his head. "Come back in a week?"

"It's a date."

"Even if it's not done?" 

"Especially if it's not done," Scipio said, smiling as he left.

He got into the car and told Gaius to drive. It was a shame what was about to happen. He'd been looking forward, almost despite himself, to a week from now.

*

"No. I'm not doing it and that's final," Scipio said.

His father sighed. "Stop being a child. If you don't take my place as Imperator, someone much worse will."

"They're fucking welcome to it!" Scipio shouted. He left and slammed the door behind him.

He made his way out of the building, out on the walkway and into the rain. It was cold and got under skin, settling right next to 'what am I going to do now?'. He decided to go up. Maybe he'd be able to see the sun before the Etruscans gunned him down.

"Hey," Gaius said. He was still driving the same old, full of holes car. It was more hole than car now, seriously limiting both the speed and height it was safe to drive at.

"Hey," Scipio replied. "I'm not going back."

"To your old man? I fucking hope not! Took you long enough to stand up to him." Gaius kicked open the door closest to Scipio. "Come on. You can crash on my couch."

*

"Scipio," Gaius said. 

Scipio rolled out from under the car to look at him, because he sounded serious and that never happened with Gaius. "Yeah?"

"Your father is dead."

"He what?"

"The Carthaginians blew up an entire eight floors of the Cannae building," Gaius said.

"They what? How?" Scipio's mind was rushing along a dozen possibilities. Grouping everything surrounding the Imperator into one building had been a means to avoid exactly this; the reasoning went that it would be impossible to get so far as to harm the Imperator without being detected. "How do we know it's the Carthaginians?"

"Don't know how they did it and because of this." Gaius swiped his thumb over the Augury's surface and a holo of Scipio's father office appeared. In the holo, among the dust and debris of the office, was a symbol burned into the floor: a circle over an horizontal bar over a triangle.

"The mark of Tanith," Scipio said.

"Yeah," Gaius replied. "That's not stealth at all."

*

"This is a bad idea," Gaius told Scipio.

"Do you have a better one?" Scipio asked; he really hoped Gaius did, because he didn't want to do what he was about to do.

Gaius shook his head. Scipio sighed and got out of the car -- more car than hole, now.

The meeting was held in an office in the center of the building.

"Sorry I'm late," Scipio said. "My invitation must have gotten lost."

"Or maybe you weren't invited," Aemilia said. "It's good you're finally facing your responsibility as your father's son."

Scipio winced. Aemilia's father had taken over when he'd ran away to crash on Gaius' couch and Aemilia had had to take over when her father had died in what was starting to become known as the Cannae bloodbath. She blamed Scipio for his death.

"Cornelius," Hannibal said and held out his hand. Scipio eyed him and it suspiciously. Hannibal's eyes, his gaze rendered unnerving by the blind one, looked back at him coolly.

Scipio shook his hand. "Barca."

*

"So you married Aemilia," Hannibal said.

"Her idea," Scipio said. "Unite both factions of the Roman and not devolve into civil war."

"A good plan. Not one I approve of, you understand, but a good one. Drink?" Hannibal waved a hand loosely around in the vague direction of the spirit cabinet.

"Depends," Scipio said. "What have you got?"

Maharbal gave a list before Hannibal asked for it. Gaius stopped him when he got to Scipio's favourite, poured a glass and walked over to give it to Scipio. He kept his cards in his hands until he got back to his game with Maharbal. 

"Maharbal told me I should have all you Romans left killed, after Cannae," Hannibal said. He poured himself a drink. 

"A sensible plan," Scipio said. "Why didn't you?"

"One of them owed me a date." Hannibal tipped his glass towards Scipio. 

Scipio snorted. "Fine. Keep your secrets."

"Much obliged," said Hannibal. "And you do still owe me a date."

"The Augury blew up." Scipio waved his fingers near Hannibal's blind eye. Hannibal nodded and Scipio continued, "Don't see how I can pick it up now."

Hannibal pushed Scipio's hand away from his face, delicately. "I don't have the manpower to take over the Roman controlled part of this city. I would rather it not fall into civil war."

"And Cannae was some your finest work, but I'd rather not see it repeated," Scipio said. 

"As if I could, with your decentralised approach to command. What is it you're calling that jetbiker gang?"

Scipio was afraid, for a moment. Hannibal should not know these things, but if he did know and had done nothing, then perhaps his offer of peace was genuine. "The Lupercals, but you knew that already."

*

The smoke rose in the empty sky. Scipio held back his tears as he held his daughter tight and she cried all of hers.

"Hannibal," he said. "I didn't expect -- Thank you for coming."

"I couldn't leave you alone," Hannibal said. "I can't claim I know what you feel --"

"I know," Scipio said and looked away. "I heard." He held Cornelia tighter; he couldn't imagine losing her.

They stayed in silence until the last of the smoke was gone and the last of Cornelia's tears was dried.

She turned to Hannibal. "Who are you?"

"A friend," Hannibal said.

She knew what Scipio did and what her mother had done, but now was not the time for her to learn about Hannibal. She would learn -- Scipio would tell her -- but not now, so he let the word hang heavy in the air between them.

"Yes," he said. "A friend."

*

Cornelia was away in another part of the city, in one of the shining atria of someone who'd never seen a gun, knew her only as a friend from college and had no idea who her father was. 

Aemilia was dead and though he'd grown to love her in time, she'd never loved him as more than a friend. Still, he hoped she had been happy.

Gaius was with his own family -- or possibly at the casino with Maharbal.

Scipio drank, laughed bitterly and almost choked. He'd known this would happen. He hadn't wanted it, but here he was and it was so lonely at the top.

He had Cornelia, who was his daughter, and he had Gaius, who was his friend, and that was it.

Well.

Not quite. He did still have one more debt to repay.

He toyed with the idea, tossing and turning it in his mind. I glittered with possibilities, with might-have-beens and could-bes. It glittered and shone and he was tempted, but in the end he put it back on the shelf for when he would be less of a coward.

*

Cornelia had a son now, a tiny pink boy called Tiberius and Scipio couldn't remember her being so small, even at that age.

He handed her son back to her and said, "Cornelia. Think about what you're doing. You do not have to do this if you do not want to."

He wanted her to have the life he never got to have. Sempronius knew him only as the owner of a garage and her as someone who had gone to colleeg on a scholarship. They could be happy, away from his life of violence.

"Father, can we please have this conversation when I've slept more than two hours in the last twenty-four?"

"Of course."

*

"You named the kid after me? You shouldn't have!" Gaius said. He picked up Tiberius and said, "Look it's your brother Gaius, isn't he cute?"

"He smells," Tiberius said and kicked at Gaius.

"Doesn't mean he isn't cute," Gaius said.

Scipio smiled. It was good that Gaius' role as Cornelia almost-uncle was honoured somehow.

"You really shouldn't have," he told her. "He'll be insufferable, now."

"Oh hush," she told him. "You know you love it. Besides, Sempronius insisted."

And that, as they said, was that. Sempronius had died a few weeks back. Scipio heavily suspected it was poison; now that Aemilia was dead, the alliance their marriage had sealed was slowly unraveling.

"Father, about that conversation..."

*

For ten years, Scipio taught Cornelia everything he knew. She had less to learn that he had expected and learned as fast as her mother ever had.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Gaius asked.

"Maharbal asked the same thing," Hannibal said.

"I should hope so. He told me he would," Gaius said. 

"It's just a party," Scipio said. 

"I know," Gaius replied."And _you_ know it's not the party I'm talking about."

"Yes," Scipio said. He picked up the two gifts from next to him and got out of the car.

Gaius ran to his side and took them from him. Hannibal slid in the empty driver's seat.

Scipio went to the party, congratulated Tiberius on his election with a new toga and gave the elephant to little Gaius, who promptly declared it the best thing ever.

When the party was over, Scipio got into the passager side of the car.

"I'm not wearing your name," Hannibal said. "Nothing personal."

"Me neither. Politics." They both sighed. Scipio continued, "I do want to wear your name. The same as you, I mean."

"I've always liked the sound of Africanus myself."

"Sounds good. Let's elope."


End file.
